


Settling

by Grey_Amethyst



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Warnings, Ephebophilia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentions of Grooming, Pre-Canon, Problematic Narrator, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 09:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6464881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grey_Amethyst/pseuds/Grey_Amethyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a visit to an alumnae event in the Prescott manor, Mark Jefferson meets a girl on the right side of beautiful. Too bad his teaching tour hasn't brought him to Blackwell Academy yet, but maybe there’s another reason to settle in Arcadia Bay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling

**Author's Note:**

> I started this before Episode 5 in the effort to gain a better understanding of Jefferson's character and theorize the Dark Room's secondary purpose. It lay stagnant for a couple of months afterward since many of my assumptions were proven wrong, but I wanted to finish something involving Kristine and her brother, even if it's through a darkly observant lens, since so few works seem to mention her.
> 
> The warning for Underage does not involve any physical contact beyond what's typical in a public event, but I found it necessary to add just by the nature of the narrator.

There’s a certain wistful desperation that comes with any alum event, aging bodies and long dead potential stirring among one another as a common link, already frayed and beaten, strained to tether any sort of relevance to these events beyond insecure adults anxious and eager to measure themselves among one another. Mark skipped the first as he slogged through that pathetic bog of an internship, but each one since then was legitimately blocked to him through work.

Either way he never made a conscious effort to connect to his former classmates or Vortex Club peers, though the occasional news of some opportunistic marriage or aching breakthrough trickled in his direction.

In retrospect it’s not at all surprising that, for all his past John Hughes meets _The Perks of Being a Wallflower_ brand of equal parts rebellion and teen conformity, Sean Prescott ended up returning to Oregon.

Within the manor’s main building Mark thinks he might see why that is, though as a rare childless breed he can’t quite understand, especially when Sean’s youngest is all coiled-up and small in his too-expensive suit as his father guides him through the guests like a dog drawn into a dark corner. Mark is almost bored of how this generation of Prescotts is so ordinary among the newly-rich widows and drug-addled businessmen of their graduating class, but when he hears the son is named after Sean’s father he holds back a bark of laughter and wonders just how well they’ve all learned to fake composure.

At some point the niceties start grating at him, and perhaps the seventh time someone jokes about him taking a professional headshot of them, his patience, already ground to sparks, flickers and dies. He excuses himself and after a few minutes of untangling finds himself wandering the far end of the manor, easing that practiced look of concentration on his face so the biggest interruptions on his goalless trip are eager stares waiting to squeeze out his attention for even an instant.

Past the bar and behind the dining room, where only the occasional curious soul flits about, is a renovated wing with floor-length windows. It smells of tobacco and sawdust, plants winding across the shelves just below the ceiling. On a warmer day Mark could imagine Sean’s wife thrusting open the glass doors, platform pumps expertly navigating the cobbled deck as she inhaled her fourth cigarette of the day, gold bangles trembling on her wrists. In the dead of winter he can only see trembles of the indoor lights haloing past the stone and into the grass.

It’s chilly, even this close, and he steps back to admire the distant curls of brush in the distance. If it were bright enough to see the coastal view he would’ve taken a photo for the story if not the novelty; an anecdote about his immensely rich schoolmate would dilate a few eyes, no matter how firmly guarded. 

And it’s like this, observing a world he left so long ago, that she comes across him.

He doesn’t notice her until her heel scrapes against the tile, and when he turns she still has her face buried in her phone, slim fingers cradling it with a concentration Mark found in many students, but those _eyes_ , all big and blue as she squinted at the screen, darting her tongue past her lips as she considered her next message, probably something vapid and indulgent as girls were so prone to.

Her pace is slow, and, curious, he doesn’t make himself known. She nearly shuffles behind him when her elbow brushes his arm. A younger girl would’ve tripped in those shoes, but this one takes one big step back with her right foot, gaze sharpening to clean decorum when she makes eye contact.

He wonders whose daughter she is. Maybe John, whose appearance always stuck him as unfortunate, or Matthew, who certainly never intended to marry a woman. The universe had a strange sense of humor, sometimes.

This one tucks her phone in her shoulder bag as she drapes a smooth smile on her lips. She seems familiar. Up close Mark can see reddish imprints on either side of her nose but can’t tell if she’s wearing contacts. The back of her hand is tanned darker than the bottom as she reaches out to shake his hand. “My apologies, I didn’t see you there.” Mark keeps his grip firm, but lets her guide the movement. It isn’t until she claps her left palm over his knuckles that the resemblance strikes him, and he needs to concentrate very hard to keep from spilling into laughter. “Kristine Prescott, nice to meet you.”

“Well, hello Kristine.” He lets himself spill into a grin that has made many imaginations flow behind sparkling eyes. Kristine Prescott doesn’t even loosen her grip, though her lips part just barely, her front teeth peering boldly between her full lips. “Mark Jefferson. Pleased to meet you.”

Kristine nods, satisfied. And he catches her pupils shift, as if running across a list of cursory introductions her parents pulled her through. Their hands part, yet she still looks so collected.

A steady, unknowing challenge is always a good sign.

“It’s great to meet you in person,” she says. “My dad’s mentioned you before.”

“I should consider myself flattered,” he replies, and in that gently ambiguous space Kristine glances across him, shifting her weight to the left. If her face was a little softer, the thick slope of her nose smoothed out, jaw rounded under her ears, she could be made into magazine model quality. Her chuckle is breathy and she glances down, brings one hand to roll across the silver watch on her other wrist. When he catches her eyeliner, the wings tentative, a little uneven, he can’t help but indulge. She’s on the right side of beautiful. “Though I must express my condolences that you are trapped here by yet another old geezer.”

He grins at her, gently, knowingly, and this time she does laugh, all crisp and loud. She takes a moment to cover her mouth with the back of her knuckles but he’s starting to find that rabbit-toothed grin endearing. He can sit her up, have her look surprised yet contemplative, a little clueless but not stupid.

She loosens up then, and he is able to ease out a bit from her. Kristine is nearly eighteen and about to enter her senior year at Blackwell Academy. She’s not much of an artist but wanted to attend her dad’s alma mater (she lifts her shoulders in a small shrug here and he nods, genuinely sympathetic) and she’s thinking about being a social worker. Her family moved from Florida when Grandpa Prescott died and her brother misses it much more than she does.

When she asks about his work, his travels, her eyes gleam hungrily, her sharp intakes of breath audible in the tender silence. Kristine listens with dreamlike fervor, and he wishes she were his student, wants to pull at that innocent hopefulness and twist its strands around his fingers.

He leaves her enough room to feel like she’s not being pinned-up, though he absorbs her high-cheekbones, heart-shaped lips, wide hips. Her soft, golden knees are bent slightly and Mark knows it will take a few years for Kristine to grow into her pencil skirt and leather four inch heels.

Time slows as he angles himself toward her and she forgets to cover her mouth while her front teeth dominate her delicate grin and they have all the time in the world. He’ll give her some as she needs it, pretend she still isn’t learning how to dust make-up over her eyelids, treat her like a woman and bait her heart out with soft laughter and sincere praise until she’s ready to behave like one.

So much can be captured in just one year.

Kristine’s eyes are folding at the corners like silk and he wants to smooth out the firm, eager coils of muscle at her cheeks with his thumbs. She’s light and young and he thinks, _this will be easy_.

And then her gaze flickers, too-wide grin freezing as she catches something behind him.

“Ah, someone a little more interesting?” He offers a warm look, makes sure she knows he would like her here.

Kristine looks back at him tinged with guilt, her flowery joy sated into unaffected calm, distant like her mother’s constant smile, as she says, “Just a friend from school. My apologies, Mark,” and he wants to frown at the way his name drops from her mouth, all tight and controlled now, “but I promised I’d help her with a project.”

She glances over one more time, slim legs straightening, one of her hands toppling upward to catch at one of the ringlets of chestnut hair cascading down her shoulders. Mark, expressionless, follows her gaze for only a second.

Just outside the floor-length windows, unassuming in a round black jacket and bubblegum lipstick, stood a girl beaming through the glass, one hand clasped firm against her canvas bag. Her plainness boasts Blackwell’s alleged increased focus on STEM fields in complement with a long history of the arts, but she stands outside the Prescott residence with such little discomfort Mark wonders how she navigated the grounds, let alone the other guests, as if she was never out of place at all.

He focuses back on Kristine and receives his answer in the unflinching burn in her eyes, the slow, intimate cadence of her body rocking so slightly in this girl’s direction.

And he understands Sean Prescott’s sudden display of his pale wreck of a son.

Well.                                    

Kristine’s expression is otherwise intact, expectant, and Mark chuckles kindly.

“I imagine she’s as talented as you. You sure you don’t want to invite her in?”

She gives him a measured smile but can’t – or perhaps doesn’t – mask the fondness in her voice. “No, I’m afraid Melissa isn’t the artsy type. But my younger brother Nathan, I’m sure he’d love to meet you.” It’s a little endearing, how she can’t help but gush a bit, even with her girlfriend waiting. “He’s a photographer. He won’t be going to Blackwell for a few years, but I’ll introduce you someday.”

Mark considers denying himself Sean’s inevitable presentation of Kristine’s brother just to see how she would eventually do it, but he thinks, if anything, he might be able to reshape this broken part of her Kristine spills with so little hesitation. With enough effort, he might be able to draw _something_ out of her, but by the time he can take her, untraced, for something tangible, she’ll be just barely beyond this height of youthful beauty. He considers it, then says as he has so many times tonight, “I’m looking forward to it.”

He isn’t able to watch Kristine leave, though he can picture her long legs without restraint and that toothy grin.

What a waste. His only relief is the hope that she’ll be mostly innocent at least until after college when she grows out of this stage of lipstick rebellion.

The rest of the night plods on. Mark finds his thoughts coming back to Kristine slipping away from this nonsense more than once – like father like daughter, he supposes, but he remembers that Sean’s indulgences always seemed to lie more in coke than women. When he finally comes across him again it’s with more fascination than patient irritation. He introduces his son, Nathan, but doesn’t bother giving him a chance to shake Mark’s hand.

“Hopefully you already met my daughter,” Sean says, with no upward lilt to his words as always. He is Mark’s age but his hair is already graying at the temples, his voice gravelly and thick. His wedding band is bright and his son’s face has a red streak along the height of his cheekbone.

“Kristine, was it? She introduced herself about an hour back. Remarkably well-spoken, for a girl her age.” Nathan’s mouth tightens as he turns his head away entirely. He glances up at Mark, and Mark smiles down at him, sympathetically. To his credit, the kid holds the stare for a few seconds before he scoffs, silent, behind his father.

“I believe _precocious_ is the word you’re looking for. She likes to think herself worldly,” Sean says, almost apologetically. “Though she can sometimes be mature for eighteen. My current consolation – especially with her being in the Vortex Club – is that she always watches her glass.”

Mark slowly, purposefully allows his lips to gash over his face as his wine goes stagnant in its glass. He lets it split all the way up to his eyes, and says, “Strange. In my experience, this generation is a bit more innocent than that.”

Without a moment of hesitation, Sean Prescott lifts his glass and takes a sip. “Then let’s hope your experience will extend to Blackwell.”

Ah, so _that’s_ what he’s getting at. Mark takes a drink from his glass as well. It figures that Sean was too absorbed in his powder and cigars back then to keep any of those old insights intact. Mark still has the pictures of that first girl tucked in with his miscellaneous subjects unworthy of their own binders. A good amount of them are from his Blackwell days, long before Deanna, even if their backdrops were similar: gingerly spread bedsheets on a dorm room floor. The girls swelled slowly back to life and thanked him in the morning, and _what a gentleman_ , pouring them water and watching Alka-Seltzer dissolve in their cups, but when the flashes went off all he ever saw were the soiled remnants of some other boy’s thwarted intentions. He wondered, once, if he should leave the girls to their fate wrought by carelessness, but a solid reputation is so hard to build.

Mark offers Sean an ambiguous answer, and of course the thinly veiled negotiations begin. All the while, Sean’s son is in the background, shifting his weight from leg to leg like a dog tied to a post. Kristine mentioned that he wouldn’t be going to Blackwell for a few years. Around twelve years old then, maybe thirteen. As the conversation tapers off in Sean’s favor, leaving him arrogant and sated, Mark looks over the kid. There is nothing impressive about him, not like his sister, leaving him all wrung out and small in his designer suit.

After all this time, the only things he ever misses about Blackwell are the bright-eyed girls and drugs. His foray into teaching finally gave him steady access to the former, but it was so hard to capture them before his lens. The inconsistencies in his settings were getting distracting as well, even if some of his creative risks worked for the better.

But maybe, with some help, he can reach a new peak with the sensitive niche he has so slowly carved for himself.

If only he had gotten in touch a few years earlier. He could have Kristine Prescott offering him all of this already, legs splayed long and full for his camera. Oh well. Sometimes it’s necessary to settle.

“Just consider my offer, Mark,” Sean Prescott says with all the consideration of a man who expects only one response. When he sets off, his son doesn’t notice at first, chin tucked down toward his phone, just barely concealed at his waist. The kid doesn’t even bother looking his way when he glances up, just huffs loudly and starts for the complete opposite direction of where his father went. Mark catches his shoulder and pretends he doesn’t feel him flinch.

“Nathan,” he says, and he watches those eyes widen, blue and sunken. Mark smiles at him gently, knowingly. “Your sister mentioned introducing us. She said you’re a talented photographer.” Nathan’s shoulder eases. Mark chuckles and lets his hand settle back at his side, leaves the kid enough room to feel like he’s not being chained down. “I know it must be a pain to have to listen to a couple of old guys bantering, but I’d love to see that skill cultivated at Blackwell Academy. It may have a smaller program than what you might be looking for, but hey. A lot can change in a few years.”

For a moment the kid just stares, equal parts confused and surprised, it seems. Then Nathan narrows his eyes, and there is none of the delicately posed confidence of his sister, none of the calculated words. When his lips draw back Mark catches a flash of braces over his straight teeth. None of Kristine’s bashful grin either, then. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “You can say that shit all you want, but you’re gonna have to talk to my dad if you want a better salary offer.” He heads off in the right direction this time, weaving around the thinning throngs of guests.

Mark’s grin lingers at Nathan’s retreating back. Another steady, unknowing challenge.

A few years isn’t that long a wait.


End file.
